Trusting the Process

An album is a complete musical body of work. Most rap artist can drop mixtape after mixtape but perfecting the art of the album is something few can consistently do. In 2005, Kanye did just that with “The College Dropout”. But the digital age has turned the “line up around the corner at walmart to buy a CD” stage into another box of dust in your attic.Now that the year is 2019 and the music business has been propelled much further into the digital era, the traditional album experience has stayed consistent yet almost completely evolved. Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo was the first and arguably the greatest example of a major artist taking full advantage of streaming technology to ultimately change the process, narrative, and experience of the traditional rap album.

First, it is important to note that before one appreciates or critiques where something has gone, they must recognize where it has come from. As soon as a Decade ago the process of distributing an album would take months, sometimes a year to almost officially release. Audio recordings would have to be sent to the label to be approved, mastered, verified, and then finalized. This tedious and sometimes dragging process would explain why an artist might rap lines like “Working so hard feel like I missed the whole summer” (Drake) when the album came out mid July. The Truth is, 9 times out of 10 the song was probably recorded last summer. Even bars that point at major news headlines or memes that were hot in 2016 like “pretty on fleek”(Nicki Minaj) would sound extremely outdated if those same lines were to be dropped now. Therefore, in order to avoid having a “ten year ago swag”(Kanye West) artists would often avoid these types of lines altogether and play it safe. However, Kanye uses streaming technology to completely disrupt this process, and The Life of Pablo is a testament to how Kanye erases some of the distance and irrelevance that the album process may create. Since There doesn’t have to be 1,000,000 copies of CD’s prepared in the forth-coming months, Kanye would mumble a line for flow reference, wait for the latest, most relevant headline and update the verse maybe a day or two before the album drops. Hence when punchlines like “Does anybody feel bad for Bill Cosby, Did he forget the name just like Steve Harvey”(Kanye West) are heard maybe a week or two off these two heavily publicized and controversial events there is a sense of authenticity and relevance that has never quite been felt before, and it we owe that not only to the genius of Kanye, but to the advancement of streaming technology. The shock value of the pungency and swiftness of these lines have inspired many artists to do the same. Changing the process of an album, and therefore changing how we hear music altogether. Who knew that your favorite rapper, could also be your weekly news report update. The impact of this clever use of streaming technology has inspired many major artists to follow suit and has ultimately made the music we hear extremely more intimate.

Secondly, It also important to note that most artist at Kanye’s prestige drop thematic albums that follow movie like plot lines and narratives. Hence, The College Dropout. It’s based on a College Campus, and is basically about West’s personal endeavors on dropping out, being a young black man, and chasing his dream of hip-hop stardom. However, The Life of Pablo gives listeners a plot that is slightly more complex and fluid. That complexity is not true solely because of of the musical tropes it contradicts, but also in part the digital effect of the album. In a string of early Kanye tweets, we get a genre and a list of names before finally being told “The Life of Pablo” as an album title. The release of the cover probed a heavily debated topic. Which one, Pablo Picasso, or Pablo Escobar? Can either even really be considered a life of gospel?

Whichever Lens the audience uses to listen to the album, whether it be Picasso or Escobar, could be a valid argument. But What Kanye does is use the re-drops, and vocal edits of that streaming allows to change the narrative depending on when the album was heard. For example, He has the lyric change of “She be Puerto Rican day parade waving” to “She in school to be a real estate agent”. Ultimately, the functionality of these lines are merely the same, a description of the girl you dealing with. However, When we imagine “Puerto Rican day parade waving” the woman is elegantly dressed, wined and dined, and riding through the city sitting passenger to Pablo Escobar . Even though Escobar is Colombian, we get the point, to Kanye its all the same. But, the imagery of a girl being “in school to be a real estate agent” brings us back home to the classic around the way girl, someone more fitting to be with Picasso. Here we see that the ability to change Vocals on a track has not only effected the album technically, but has also given the plot of the album different dimensions with different endings in almost polar opposite directions. Depending on how soon the album was downloaded is the current deterrent to whether the listener was living the life of a wealthy drug dealer or a more modest painter’s life. Once again we see how This digital age is becoming not only a game changer, but a storyteller as well.

Lastly, Kanye’s use of post release edits and drops made The Life of Pablo an experience that was not only like no other before it, across whatever genre, but also one that made it customizable in a sense. Something that’s interesting that the tweaks of the album allowed the opportunity for a Trial and Error, Guess and check if you will. Imagine that your favorite artist is cooking a meal for you, then coming back and replacing dishes, mixing sauces, and adding different seasonings as you proceed to eat the meal. At a certain point one can argue that the artist, or now chef, will be waiting for a certain reaction, or lack of reaction, to come to his final decision of the final plate. Arguably, Kanye does this with Pablo. The World received the project before it was done. Some of its contents were met with praise, others with confusion and insult, but Kanye is no stranger to controversy. For example, Kanye first debuts Wolves on SNL https://vimeo.com/120166005. This was the worlds first real welcoming to Vic Mensa. For myself and other Chicagoans that followed the local scene heavily, seeing Vic on that stage felt like the Bears winning the Superbowl and the White Sox Winning the World series in the same year. However, to the outside world, the feeling was not reciprocated. Most people were just like WHO?!

And for whatever reason Vic’s verse didn’t make the album. Trial and Error at its finest. Streaming technology gave Kanye to go back and delete verses that were maybe already recorded and verified for recording. What Kanye also does with this technology which is genius, was turn Frank’s outro into a completely separate track post initial release. With all the Praise that Frank was getting for the outro it would have been stupid for Kanye not to give him his spotlight. It’s Like taking a calculus exam and guessing the correct answer on first try. The listeners basically told Kanye “Frank needs his own track” and in turn Kanye runs his streams up, putting more money in his pocket, a win win. Imagine being an up and coming artist and knowing that you can guess and check your music with your fans, an absolute cheat code.

In conclusion, What Kanye does for music, The digital also, does for music, as well as many other things. The Era of burning CD’s in your mothers basement are long gone and almost revoking to think of. Now we have albums that live and breathe and grow and change with out us knowing. We are able to pick at our favorite artists minds like a buffet and say things like “hey , we really really like this part, this should be its own song”. But I personally don’t believe that any of this would’ve recognized or significant if Kanye wasn’t leading the pack. And how he would say it “and that’s where the story ends”.